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Particle pollution in the Los Angeles basin exceeded the federal health standard during just 16 days in 2016, less than half the number of violations recorded in each of the previous three years, according to officials.

Particle pollution in the region’s ocean-to-mountains air basin exceeded the federal health standard during just 16 days in 2016 — which is less than half the number of violations recorded in each of the previous three years, according to data from the California Air Resources Board.

Regional air quality officials in charge of our smog cleanup efforts are encouraged by the numbers, saying they reflect their own findings for the first nine months of 2016. They used a different methodology than the state.

“This trend of air-quality improvement specifically benefits the Inland Empire, since the Mira Loma station (in western Riverside County) typically records the highest levels,” said Sam Atwood, a spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

While the decline in particle pollution is good news, the region is still very far from reaching the federal health standard for ozone, a lung-searing, invisible gas that’s at its worst during the summer. In fact, the Southern California air basin had 130 days of unhealthful ozone pollution levels in 2016, making it the worst ozone year since 2012.

Ozone and particulate pollution are region’s most significant air quality problems.

Atwood attributed the particle-pollution improvement to cleaner cars and trucks, cleaner businesses, and air district rules that ban home fireplace wood burning when higher levels of pollution are forecast during the fall and winter.

In 2016, home fireplace burning was banned on 19 days, and there were 22 such “no-burn” days in 2015.

Most people are voluntarily complying with the burn bans, which began in 2011.

As of March 2016, the district had sent out only six notices of violation, according to air district records immediately available. Violators had the option of paying a $50 fine or taking a test to show that they understood the rules. No fines were collected.

“It is really more about education,” Atwood said.

Between late 2011 and early 2016, the air district received 986 complaints about home wood burning, air district records show.

Fine particle pollution is an airborne stew of soot, smoke, chemical compounds, dust and other specks no wider than 2.5 microns – roughly one 35th the diameter of a human hair. It’s both toxic and stealthy and can penetrate the body’s natural defenses and damage cells in ways that lead to cancer and other diseases.

Hundreds of health studies have linked this kind of pollution to premature deaths, heart attacks, stroke, stunted lung development in children and the onset of brain diseases.

Under rules set by the EPA under President George W. Bush, Southern California’s air basin was supposed to meet the federal goal for particulates by 2015, with no one monitoring station allowed to have more than seven days a year during which fine-particle-pollution averages exceeded the federal health standard. But a station in the Mira Loma area of Jurupa Valley had 17 days exceeding the particulate standard in 2015, according to the air district data.

Air district officials said that several years of drought had exacerbated the pollution problem because the region had less rain to cleanse particles from the sky. The drought conditions also facilitate the formation of particle pollution.

“This year we had weather that’s been more friendly,” Atwood said.

And so was Obama administration.

In 2015, the air district successfully lobbied the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reclassify Southern California from a “moderately” to a “seriously” polluted area. That gave the region until 2019 to achieve healthful levels of particle pollution.

Atwood said it’s still too early to tell how many days in 2016 will exceed the particle-pollution health standard, but so far the news is good.

“We are encouraged by preliminary air monitoring data for the first nine months of 2016,” he said. “We are confident that we can meet the 2019 deadline as required by the EPA.”

David Danelski is an investigative and environmental reporter for The Press-Enterprise newspaper in Riverside, California. He has been with the newspaper since 1990 and has previously covered crime, transportation and city government. He is married to Lorrie Cobain, a teacher and staff development specialist for the Riverside Unified School District. The couple has one adult daughter, Rosemary. who lives in New York City.

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